The Manual of Detection in Paperback

The Manual of Detection will be available on Junuary 26th in Penguin Paperback edition. There’s a brand new cover for this lightweight, portable version of the novel, perfect for tucking into your briefcase or travel bag. On the inside, it’s just like the hardcover, minus one typo.

Here are some things you’ll find in this book:

• typewriters and telephones, often in pairs
• a mummy with modern-day dental work (suspicious, no?)
• a carnival in ruins
• the author’s dog (see page 79)
• one instance of the word “eldritch”
• some advice on investigative techniques including shadowing, surveillance, skulduggery, and dream detection
• somnambulists
• the answer to that most ancient of riddles: what does the pretty young lady have in her lunchbox?

Here are some nice things people have said about the book:

“This debut novel weaves the kind of mannered fantasy that might result if Wes Anderson were to adapt Kafka…. [Berry creates] the feeling of inhabiting a strange and haunting dream, with its own persuasive logic and somnambulant pacing.”
—The New Yorker

“[Berry] defies many mystery novel conventions, but adventurous readers who stay with his strange and fabulous debut work will be handsomely rewarded…. There is nothing mysterious about the appeal of this inventive, outrageous and often amusing dream-within-a-dream.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“The plot’s bursting with as many twists and surprises as you could hope for…. It steams along the smooth rails of Berry’s neatly constructed sentences, barreling round each well-cambered turn with barely a judder.”
—London Review of Books

“Jedediah Berry has an ear well-tuned to the styles of the detective story from Holmes to Spade and can reproduce atmosphere with loving skill.”
—Michael Moorcock

“Inventive, atmospheric, and fiendishly delightful. If you’ve ever fallen under the spell of Borges, Ray Bradbury, or Angela Carter, I urge you to acquire your own copy of The Manual of Detection.”
—Kelly Link

There are many events and readings planned for the weeks ahead, in cities and townships including Brooklyn, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. All the details are available on the sidebar to the left, on this google calendar, and at BookTour. Please come out and say hello.

More information on the book, including links to purchase a copy of your own, are available on The Manual of Detection page.